The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. — thenation.com The author of that piece really hates white people. I don’t recommend reading it, you will not be a better person for having done so, as it consists solely of sweeping generalizations, broad judgments, unfounded inferences and racial insults. Even if five points (out of a possible 100) were deducted for each verifiable fact, it still scores at least a 95. Grammar and spelling are passable. The only “fact” I remember being cited in support of affirmative action is actually false: In California, which ended its affirmative action policies over 25 years ago, the studies show that, without affirmative action, Black enrollment plummets, Latino enrollment plummets, AAPI enrollment goes up a little bit, and whites flood the remaining opportunities. The article that the author links to doesn’t even say that. Black and Latino enrollment in the… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: UCLA
Thomas Jefferson: Snails, Coups and Fake News
My fellow Americans – I recently read that scientists at UCLA made snails “remember” things that never happened. Why am I not impressed? Snails?! We have fake news that makes people remember things that never happened. Remember the “attempted coup” at the U.S. Capitol last week? That never happened. That’s what the fake news called it: an “attempted coup.” What is a coup? Isn’t it overthrowing an existing government and replacing it with a new one? The government is not a building. It’s not a room. Stealing Nancy Pelosi’s lectern doesn’t make you the new leader of the country. It’s not that easy. We declared a coup in 1776. But we still had to fight a war for the next seven years to actually make it real. There was no coup or attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol. You just remember something that never happened. Read more →
U-C-L-A Sucks
Forty years ago, @mickfleetwoodofficial, @stevienicks, and @lindseybuckingham presented the USC Trojan Marching Band with a platinum record for “Tusk.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Spirit of Troy (@usctmb) on Oct 4, 2020 at 3:28pm PDT Read more →
David Hogg’s College Prospects
A CNN news anchor asked Parkland shooting survivor and graduating senior David Hogg “what kind of dumbass colleges” would reject his application. As it happens, the dumbass colleges include UCLA and three other UC schools: UC San Diego, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara. Hogg scored a 1270 on the SAT. 1270 SAT scores are a dime a dozen. If his name were, say, Emma Gonzalez, he might get into a UC school with a 1270 SAT, but a white boy from Florida is not getting into a UC school with a 1270 SAT. Unlike Laura Ingraham, I will not lose any advertisers for pointing this out because I don’t have any advertisers. Hogg puts himself out there as a guy who’s going to play hardball with profane takedowns of anyone who doesn’t see the world the same way he does, but he feels victimized when someone says a 1270… Read more →
NYT Misrepresents California’s Affirmative Action Results
In reporting on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold a Michigan ban on the use of racial preferences in admissions to public universities, the New York Times looks at results in other states that have banned racial preferences. Here’s what the Times says about my state, California, which voted to ban racial preferences in UC admissions in 1998: Hispanic and black enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles dropped sharply after voters approved a statewide ban on affirmative action. Those numbers have not recovered, even as the state’s Hispanic population has grown. That is a misleading analysis for a couple of reasons: One: Affirmative action was banned at all UC campuses, not just Berkeley and UCLA. Ignoring all the other campuses allows the Times to say that black and Hispanic enrollment “dropped sharply” when there was actually only a 2 percent decline in… Read more →
Banning Racial Preferences in California Helped Everyone
When racial preferences were banned by the voters in California, there were dire predictions that this would mean the virtual disappearance of black and Hispanic students from the University of California system. What in fact happened was a 2% decline in their enrollment in the University of California system as a whole, but an increase in the number of black and Hispanic students graduating, including an increase of 55% in the number graduating in four years and an increase of 63% in the number graduating in four years with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. Instead of the predicted drastic decline in enrollment in the system as a whole, there was a drastic redistribution of black and Hispanic students within the University of California system. Their enrollment dropped at the two most elite campuses, Berkeley and UCLA — by 42% at the former and 33% at the latter.… Read more →
USC 75, UCLA 71 (OT)
Sorry to spoil Reggie Miller Jersey Retirement Night at the new Pauley Pavilion, but you should know better than to schedule these things against the Men of Troy. FIGHT ON! Read more →
Card Stunts
We’re in Berkeley for Parents Weekend, watching Cal and UCLA battle it out on the gridiron. One of the halftime highlights at Cal football games is card stunts. I know, welcome to the 1920s, right? Everyone held up their cards, which were either blue or gold. The cards on the opposite side of the stadium from us spelled out “Memorial Stadium” but we couldn’t see what our own cards spelled. “I hope they say ‘UCLA Sucks,’” I said to my wife standing next to me, but unfortunately loud enough for a nearby husband-and-wife team of Bruin fans to hear me. “Did you really just say that?” the woman asked. “We’re helping.” Meaning that they were holding up their cards to support the card stunt and didn’t deserve to be insulted. When you venture into enemy territory, you have to expect some derision. Read more →
Cal 43, UCLA 17
We’re up here in Berkeley for Parents Weekend. I was saying since we arrived that this looks like a winnable game for Cal and couldn’t find one person — student or parent — to agree with me. Cal was 1-4, UCLA was 4-1. Cal fans are conditioned for disappointment. I’m a USC guy and USC fans were the same way in the pre-Pete Carroll era. Fans showed up for games not to cheer on the team but to bemoan another disappointing performance. This is a nice wakeup call for the Bruins. Despite their record and ranking coming into the game, they’re not very good. Read more →
What is Rick Neuheisel Doing on the Pac-12 Network?
What is this simpleton Rick Neuheisel doing as a studio analyst on the Pac-12 Network? How many Pac-12 football programs has Rick Neuheisel destroyed? Let’s review . . . You wouldn’t know it from watching them lose at home today to Colorado State, but the University of Colorado was an elite program, a national championship winner, when Neuheisel inherited the program from Bill McCartney. Colorado football has never recovered from Rick Neuheisel. Washington Husky football, thanks to Steve Sarkisian, is just starting to recover from Rick Neuheisel. I can’t say that Neuheisel wrecked the UCLA football program because there wasn’t much to wreck, but he was at least as bad and probably worse than his abysmal predecessor, Karl Dorrell. Neuheisel’s last game at the helm was a 50-0 dismantling by USC, the worst loss in the rivalry in 70 years. Neuheisel is a stupido. He looks stupid. He sounds stupid.… Read more →
Crosstown Cup: USC 8, UCLA 3
The Crosstown Cup was on the line Saturday night. The USC and UCLA hockey teams faced off at Anaheim Ice and the Trojans dominated pretty much as I expected. It was also Senior Night — the last game of the season. One of the Trojans players is graduating with a doctorate in education, one kid is getting an MBA and two kids are graduating with a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering. As scholar-athletes, they’re pretty darn good scholars. As athletes . . . let’s say that they were somewhat less good than my kid’s 18-and-under roller team from last season. Speed, puck control, rink awareness — all limited at best. They were a lot better than UCLA though. The Victory Bell was in attendance. Something I didn’t know is that the Victory Bell is really loud if you’re right next to it. And by “right next to it,” I… Read more →
UCLA 66, USC 47
After this debacle of a basketball game, my son, a college freshman, says to me, “I should have gone to USC. I could probably walk on to basketball and make the team.” “Are you kidding? You could probably walk on and start,” I said. Read more →
UCLA Hires Jim Mora
ROSE Bowl?! Are you kiddin’ me? ROSE Bowl? We’re just trying to win a GAME! Okay, I know it’s not that Jim Mora. First I want to say for the record that the firing of Rick Neuheisel was a bad move. Despite the naysayers, he had the program moving in the right direction. Pac-12 Southern Division champions. He closed the gap with USC. Yeah, I know they lost to USC 50-0 but just imagine what the score would have been if he hadn’t closed the gap. I heard Coach Mora on the radio this afternoon. I wasn’t impressed. I’m not as elated as I was about the Neuheisel or Karl Dorrell hirings, but I just don’t think UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero has any idea about how to hire a football coach. He’s tried to copy the Pete Carroll model, first by hiring Carroll assistants as coordinators, and now by… Read more →
Charlie Weis to Coach Kansas
DAMMIT! I was hoping UCLA would be able to land him. No whale pun intended. I’m Charlie Weis and I’m taking my “talents” to Westwood. FIGHT ON! Read more →
Engineering is Serious Business, Says Engineering Major
The dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering expressed support today for a recommendation from a student group that the college create a recruitment and retention plan for women and underrepresented minority students. — California Watch It sounds like the dean might be up for lowering the engineering standards to meet diversity metrics. Bad idea. Engineering is serious business. Also: Preferential treatment by a public institution based on race, sex or ethnicity is prohibited by California law. I’ve got a better and more legal idea: How about if the women and “underrepresented” minority students suck it up and meet the same academic standards as everyone else? Or apply to a different school? If they can’t meet the standards at Berkeley, they might do fine at a less demanding institution like Stanford or UCLA. I’ve attended engineering school myself. We had diversity admits. After one semester, maybe two, they weren’t there… Read more →
USC Football – UNFILTERED – UCLA
UCLA Fires Rick Neuheisel
UCLA Fires Rick Neuheisel — latimes.com NOOOOOO! Ignore the naysayers! The program is headed in the right direction! Great things are on the horizon! The gap is closing! Read more →
Closing the Gap: USC 50, UCLA 0
We have closed the gap more with SC. We got a chance to win a championship this week. That’s closing the gap. We haven’t had that chance in the past. We’ll see where the gap is after the ball game, but the gap is closed. — UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, before the game Tonight they were clearly the superior team. I don’t think that’s the case all the time. I believe we can close the gap, and we will. We weren’t good enough to play a marquee team like USC. — UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, after the game The gap was really close. You can tell by the score. — USC offensive tackle Matt Kalil Maybe Neuheisel meant that the gap has been closed since 1929, when USC won the inaugural crosstown showdown 76-0. Using any more recent date as a starting point for gap measurement, it looks wider than… Read more →
It’s Rivalry Week!
Rick Neuheisel is the Right Man for UCLA
We have to say it was a game that obviously got away from us in the first half. We take from it what we can learn. We put the tough loss behind us and go forward. — Rick Neuheisel, after last night’s 48-12 loss to Arizona Amazing . . . Neuheisel’s in his fourth year at UCLA. He’s playing Arizona, a program in disarray, in a critical game for Bruin bowl aspirations. The Wildcats haven’t won a game against an FBS opponent in a year, since last season’s victory over UCLA. They fired their coach last week. Doesn’t Neuheisel expect to win games like this? And after losing 48-12, in a game that wasn’t even as close as the score indicates (it was 42-7 at halftime), all he can say is “Good learning experience. Let’s move on.” I can only echo what I said four years ago: Rick Neuheisel is… Read more →